Just Breathe

There is not a whole lot more terrifying than be awakened in the night by the sound of your child gasping for breath.  This was our Wednesday night.  Hysterical crying, coughing and gasping – our oldest son jolted us out of bed and into a flurry of action.

But to go back a bit further, about a year and a half ago his daycare kept sending him home because of a cough.  He was totally healthy otherwise, just this incessant cough.  The cough got worse and worse until finally he began spiking fevers.  I took him to a doctor, who, by the way, was a total jerk and announced, "Congratulations!  You have a cold!"  Nice.  Thank you.  NExt time I will hold out for his real doctor.

Anyway, that night Urban was coughing all night and coughed so hard he threw up.  It was the first time in his life he had ever thrown up.  I am lucky in some ways, I guess.  But, I knew this was not a cold.  I knew it in my bones.  I took him to urgent care the next morning, and they did chest x-rays.  His cough had developed into pneumonia.  He was 3.  It was so scary, but with the medication he began to get better.  However, we noticed whenever we took him to a park or out to play with his buddies, he would degrade into these coughing jags.  We did a follow up with his pediatrician, and Urban was diagnosed with asthma.  Asthma?  Yep.  At 3 he had asthma.  Heare I thought asthma was wheezing and gasping for breath.  Apparently coughing is a very common product of asthma and can actually be the ONLY symptom.

They surmise that it is allergy induced asthma, so every night he takes a dose each of Zyrtec and Singulair.  He has been well-controlled ever since.  We were also outfitted with a nebulizer and some Albuterol for emergencies.  We have used it twice, and both of those times were before they added the Zyrtec to his nightly lineup.  He really has had no symptoms at all since the initial diagnosis.

Then, last Wednesday, we faced a wheezing, gasping 4 1/2-year-old and two groggy parents at 12:30AM.  We dug out the neb, and I cradled and soothed Urban while we tried to administer the Albuterol treatment.  We got about 2 minutes into the 10 minute treatment and Urban began to panic anew and we had to stop.  Brett was on the phone with nurse line, and once we got Urban calmed down we, with the help of the nurse at the other end, decided that we would wait until morning and go to his pediatrician to see what was up.  He had never had an asthma attack like this.  Ever.

The next morning, I bundled a completely healthy and energetic Urban into the car to see the doctor.  Urban LOVES doctors.  He gets excited for shots, and was very disappointed he would not be receiving one that day.  And he loves talking to them about every last thing they are doing and interjecting his own opinions.  This has been essentially since birth.  All of the first images we have of him, moments after his birth, he is curled around one of the nurses' stethoscopes.  He took it as his first act of life and cried if they tried to take it away.

Anyway, we were given a new "Asthma Action Plan", which now includes daily neb treatments plus his meds and Albuterol for emergencies.  It is so much.  I was really processing all day.  It's overwhelming to think about dragging this big nebulizer everywhere just in case - about having to teach Urban and each teacher how to us it in case, and about sending him to Kindergarten with this machine.  I was just looking forward to the day that he would be able to switch to an easily transportable and concealable inhaler.

Thursday night was a normal night, and we all looked forward to a good nights' sleep to recover from the drama the night before.  All seemed to be going well until it hit midnight.  Urban came stumbling out of his room and down the stairs gasping, "I'm having difficulty breathing."  (Yes, those were the words he used...I'm thinking because that's how doctors talk.)

We hooked him up to his nebulizer for the second time that day, I guess third if you count the previous night, and he did the full treatment but sounded no different.  This time the commotion woke Mom too, so she agreed to stay with Beringer so that Brett and I could both go to take Urban to the ER.

This is very serious business for Urban, as you might imagine.  Going to the hospital may not be quite as awesome as say, an amusement park, but it ranks right up there.  (In fact, when he was 2 he informed me, while we were visiting Daddy after back surgery, "I live here now an' work.  I take out da gahbage.  Den I be doctor.")  So, as you can imagine, he was very serious answering the nurse's and doctor's questions...  Well, as best he could since he was coughing and barely had a voice.  He was so serious, in fact, that we were repeatedly asked if he was really 4.  No.  We're lying.

Well, everyone was all geared up to give him another asthma treatment, when he let out an enormous barking cough.  The doctor stopped, looked at me, and said, "Has he had croup before?"

"Yes. a few times.  I thought this sounded like croup, but I thought he was too old."

"Well, it's not completely unheard of in a child his age.  And that definitely sounds like croup to me."

They treated him for croup, and by the time we left 2 1/2 hours later, he sounded great.  I took the following day off so that both of us could recover.  Urban recovered by 8:30AM.  So, I did not get to recover so much because there were apparently a number of board games that NEEDED to be played.

Anyway, all has dwindled to just minor coughs and runny noses in both boys and we are all back to our normal schedules.  What a weekend, though.

Now, we're thinking we'll hold off the dragging the neb everywhere and the daily treatments.  He had croup.  It wasn't asthma at all, so why add all that extra work and medication to his system?  I just hope it's the right call.

I think if Urban had a catch phrase, it would be, "Go big or go back to toddlers."  No piddly little colds for that kid.  It's all or nothing.  ::yawn::  Even when it comes to catching up on sleep.